I think that if I were prone to nervous breakdowns, I might have had one today. Being homeless is v. stressful. I would say that I'm typically pretty optimistic, and things have a strange way of working out for me. But, I pay for that luck with an absurd ability to wind up in situations that I've joked about for months or years. I realized that I was in another of those situations today when the crisis of where to watch the Olympics tonight was resolved by deciding to crash the tv room at the Stanford women's center. I've made fun of the women's center and everyone involved in it for several years. Suddenly, though, I find myself actively making plans to watch the primetime Olympic coverage there tonight, and potentially sleep on one of the couches there rather than drive to Terry or Claudia's apartments.
This was all funny at the moment, but I almost started crying when I realized what that would entail. So, my pendulum swung in the opposite direction, and I now have a reservation for the rest of the weekend at a hotel. I think the major problem is that I require about nine hours of sleep, but the people I've been staying with require about seven, and so I'm just really tired. Also, I think I'm getting sick, and I freaked out when I realized that I have no home to stay home sick in. So, I'm still going to watch the Olympics tonight at the women's center with Tammy--but tomorrow, I'm going to sleep in, have a laid-back brunch with Vidya, and then spend the rest of the day taking a bubble bath, painting my toenails, perhaps drinking champagne, and watching the Olympics. This will also give me the chance to look presentable on Monday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Yay.
Anyway, other than the constant high levels of stress and my residual anger over the fact that it's not my fault that I'm homeless, life is pretty good. I watched the opening ceremonies last night with Tammy, Shedletsky, Claude and Vidya in the Old Pro sports bar. Luckily we scored an upstairs room where we could turn all the tvs to the Olympics and turn the volume up really high, since the downstairs had turned into a big drinkfest by nine p.m. I was pretty impressed with the opening, other than the completely superfluous and ridiculous segment with Yoko Ono and Peter Gabriel. Ugh. I had dim sum w/Tammy and Shedletsky this morning, and then spent a couple of hours on campus wishing Greg a happy birthday, which was fun.
I'm sitting in my office at 6pm on a Saturday, since I had to come to the office if I wanted to check my email...or if I wanted clean clothes for tomorrow. Lame. I think I'm going shopping tomorrow to boost my supplies. Also, the hotel-thing is good because I'm out of conditioner and almost out of shampoo, so I can replenish for the week with the little travel-sized toiletries. What a bonus!
Okay, I need to go before the battery on my computer dies--I only have one outlet in range of my desk, which I usually use for my monitor and my laptop's docking station, but it's really hot in my office (especially on weekends, when they apparently turn off the a/c), so I had to unplug the docking station and plug in my fan, and now my laptop's about to quit. Sigh. If only they would use the money they save on a/c to either find me an apartment or send me to Ireland, I'd be a happy camper. Or rather, I would no longer be camping. Or something.
3 comments:
I don't know what in your blog inspires me to share poetry, Sara (Email me and I'll stop!). Maybe this time it is your homeless plight. In any event, here is another from an aussie:
Orb Spider
by Judith Beveridge
I saw her, pegging out her web
thin as a pressed flower in the bleaching light.
From the bushes a few small insects
clicked like opening seed-pods. I knew some
would be trussed up by her and gone next morning.
She was so beautiful spinning her web
above the marigolds the sun had made
more apricot, more amber; any bee
lost from its solar flight could be gathered
back to the anther, and threaded onto the flower
like a jewel.
She hung in the shadows
as the sun burnt low on the horizon
mirrored by the round garden bed. Small petals
moved as one flame, as one perfectly-lit hoop.
I watched her work, produce her known world,
a pattern, her way to traverse
a little portion of the sky;
a simple cosmography, a web drawn
by the smallest nib. And out of my own world
mapped from smallness, the source
of sorrow pricked, I could see
immovable stars.
Each night
I saw the same dance in the sky,
the pattern like a match-box puzzle,
tiny balls stuck in a grid until shaken
so much, all the orbits were in place.
Above the bright marigolds
of that quick year, the hour-long day,
she taught me to love the smallest transit,
that the coldest star has planetesimal beauty.
I watched her above the low flowers
tracing her world, making it one perfect drawing.
when are you going to update this blog?
hello i dont know you but still hey!!! hehe owell bye bye just felt like commenting on this...
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